Data-driven Electric Vehicle Customer Profiling
Project Partners: DELWP, RMIT, Powercor, C4NET
Project Overview
This project aims to develop and validate Electric Vehicle (EV) charging profiles for home, work and public spaces to inform changes required for the increased uptake of EV’s in Victoria.
Context
A significant transformation is required in the electricity grid over the next decade, due to the increasing number of electric vehicles (EV) in Australia’s fleet. Charging stations at a broad range of locations are consequentially required to accommodate this growth. The impact will significantly affect electricity consumption and the maximum and minimum demands on the existing electricity grid. Accurate predictions of EV user behaviour, needs and preferences are required to adopt appropriate strategies and resources to support future EV charging requirements.
Challenges and research rationale:
The research aims to profile EV customers based on actual charging data in the Australian context. It will primarily address the following challenges:
What are the patterns of Victorian/Australian customers charging profiles at home, work and public EV charging stations? What time of the day are they charging, where and at what rate?
What is the variation in the customers charging patterns at different types of charging stations? Throughout the day, days of the week and months of the year?
What influential factors affect EV customers’ behaviour, need and preferences? Location of charging, types of chargers, weekday, temperature, holidays, tariffs and days of very high and low demand?
What are the network impacts of widespread uncontrolled EV charging? Violation of substation capacity, line loading and voltage limit?
The initial step required to address the above-mentioned questions is to represent the EV charging profile as accurately as possible, hence it is the focus of this project.
Expected Research Outputs
Output 1: Models of EV customer behaviour
Output 2: Reports on EV customers’ charging needs and preferences
Output 3: Analysis of the electricity network impact of EV charging
Important findings
C4NET partnered with RMIT researchers led by Kazi Hasan and Toufik Rahman. Findings from the data analysis conducted are as follows:
The simulation results show the likely extent of voltage violation in the network, being that most voltage violations occurred during the evening and at the end of the feeder. This research will be utilised to address voltage management at the distribution level.
In shopping centres
- Peak hour EV charging activities are around 87% and above
- Weekdays have a large share of the EV activities, 90% and above
- Both slow and fast charging may occur
In community public charging stations and council parking
- Both slow and fast charging may occur
- Weekdays have the largest share of the EV activities, 70% and above
- Late afternoon to night EV charging
In sports centres/stadiums
- Mostly slow EV charging
- Weekdays (sports centre) and weekends (stadium) EV charging
The analysis of localised and relevant data will guide the changes needed in order to build a healthy EV ecosystem in Australia. This will inevitably accelerate customer confidence and EV adoption, as the charging infrastructure required is a critical component for the customer. In order to achieve this, informed planning and dedicated infrastructure changes are necessary at various levels of the distribution grid.
Data provided by Powercor, Chargepoint/Charge fox charging stations, Darebin Community Portal, Nillumbik Community Bank Stadium, and the City of Melbourne (public charging stations).
Categories: Major Projects